Chapter 78: A Bumper Harvest of Truffles

  The rural New Year's atmosphere is much thicker than in the city. The firecracker sounds on New Year's Eve almost never stopped, and even in the morning, you could still hear people setting off firecrackers from time to time. Xiao Ping had originally planned to sleep in, but under these circumstances, he naturally couldn't sleep, so he got out of bed early.

  After having breakfast, Xiao Ping followed the routine and brought Hei Bao and Yuan Bao to patrol around the farm. When they arrived at the chicken coop, they found someone who had come even earlier than them - Zhao Quan was already busy here.

  Xiao Ping exclaimed: "Old Zhao, how did you get here so early? Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, no need to rush like this."

  The good treatment at the farm and the boss's trust made Zhao Quan full of energy, and he smiled at Xiao Ping with some embarrassment: "Anyway, I'll go visit relatives in the afternoon, and since there's nothing to do in the morning, I came over to take a look. I'm a bit worried about those chicks."

  The first batch of chicks in the chicken farm just hatched a few days before New Year's Eve and are now in their most vulnerable stage. Although they have heating equipment, sufficient feed and water in the special brooding room, Zhao Quan, who is serious about his work, still can't help but worry if he doesn't come to check on them every day.

  Xiao Ping had already secretly fed the chicks the spiritual liquid twice, so there was no need to worry about any problems with these little chickens. However, he wouldn't say this to Zhao Quan, and just smiled and encouraged his reliable subordinate: "With you in charge of the chicken farm, I can rest assured. Let's work hard next year, and our year-end bonus will definitely increase several times!"

  Zhao Quan is a honest man, after listening to Xiao Ping's words, he didn't know what to say, and just smiled foolishly, but his hands moved faster than before. Xiao Ping also helped out on the side, and soon they finished the work in the chicken farm. After all, it was still Chinese New Year, Zhao Quan didn't want to stay in the farmhouse for long, so he bid farewell and left, leaving Xiao Ping alone again in the vast farmhouse.

  Xiao Ping estimated that no one else would come to the farm today, so he returned to the villa and carefully closed the door, bringing two white-boiled trotters to the Yao Hu.

  Hei Bao and Yuan Bao were playing in the open space, when they saw Xiao Ping, they immediately ran over to surround him, wagging their tails. Hei Bao and Yuan Bao have been at the farm for almost two months now, the original little ones have grown bigger than German Blackbacks. However, in the past two weeks, they haven't grown any larger, they should be fully formed by now.

  At the same time, Hei Bao and Yuan Bao's appetite also decreased, eating only two meals a day, one hoof per meal was enough. Xiao Ping threw the hooves in his hand to Hei Bao and Yuan Bao separately, while they were enjoying their food, Xiao Ping strolled freely on this small territory.

  Everything is normal inside the Alchemy Cauldron. The Iron Skin Stonecrop will be ready to harvest soon, and Xiao Ping plans to ask Wang Dapao to help refine a batch of Iron Skin Maple after the New Year. The knife fish seedlings have grown to about two inches long, and after disinfecting the fish pond after the New Year, they will be moved outside for further cultivation. In short, everything in the Alchemy Cauldron makes Xiao Ping very satisfied. He sits under the big oak tree, looking at everything in front of him, feeling joyful and peaceful in his heart, with all worries thrown to the back of his mind.

  Black Panther and Yuanbao finished their hooves and ran to Xiao Ping's side to play with him. Xiao Ping lazily patted the heads of his beloved dogs, occasionally throwing out toy bones for them to pick up, enjoying this rare leisure time.

  However, when Xiao Ping threw the toy bone again, the black leopard did not rush out to pick it up like Yuanbao. It only ran a few steps, then lowered its head and sniffed at the ground in front of it, seeming somewhat perplexed.

  Hei Bao's abnormality soon caught Xiao Ping's attention, and he hastily ran to his dog's side, whispering encouragement: "Hei Bao, is there something down there? Find it out, find it out!"

  The black leopard seemed to understand Xiao Ping's words, barking "wang wang" twice at him before starting to dig with its front paws. Having grown up in the Lian Yao Hu for a long time, the black leopard was very strong and soon dug out a hole over ten centimeters deep. Seeing this, Xiao Ping didn't dare let it continue digging and quickly pulled it aside, personally carefully digging at the mud himself.

  Xiao Pingcai had only dug open a very thin layer of mud when he found something underneath. He hastily and carefully swept away the floating soil beside it, and a fist-sized black lump gradually appeared before his eyes - it was indeed an exceptionally fine piece of black truffle!

  "Ah ha, I knew it! Xiao Ping was overjoyed at the sight and carefully examined the black truffle, muttering to himself: "This one should weigh about three or four liang...I wonder how much it's worth?"

  Hei Bao and Yuan Bao were also affected by the spiritual energy of the Lian Yao Hu, becoming very spirited. Seeing that their master seemed to like this thing dug up from the ground, they didn't wait for Xiao Ping's order and began searching around the big oak tree on their own.

  The two spirit dogs' sense of smell was excellent, and soon they found more truffles around the oak tree. For a while, under the oak tree were only the calls of black panthers and yuanbao, reminding Xiao Ping that they had found something good again. The two dogs were too fast at finding truffles, so Xiao Ping couldn't even dig them up in time. He could only stick small branches into the ground as markers where he found truffles, then go out to find a small shovel and two baskets, and carefully start digging up these expensive foods.

  Xiao Ping dug for a long time and finally dug out two baskets full of truffles. In fact, he had intentionally left some truffles as breeders, otherwise he could have dug out at least one more basket.

  But even so, Xiao Ping's harvest was enough to shock the insiders. To know that in the wild environment, truffles are extremely rare. Even in France and Italy, where truffles are produced the most, an experienced truffle hunter with a trained dog can only find a few hundred grams of truffles per day, which is also why truffles are so expensive. But Xiao Ping found two large baskets full of truffles under just one oak tree, weighing over 100 kilograms. Such a bountiful harvest would definitely cause a huge stir in the truffle world if it got out.

  However, what happened in the Alchemy Cauldron was unknown to others, and Xiao Ping naturally enjoyed making a fortune in secret. He took these truffles away from the Alchemy Cauldron, then began to carefully sort them out, separating the black truffles and white truffles. The price of white truffles was at least four times that of black truffles, so he couldn't mix these precious ingredients together for sale.

  Xiao Ping quickly sorted and weighed the truffles, and this time he harvested a total of 63 kilograms of black truffles and 58 kilograms of white truffles, which is almost equivalent to the annual harvest of an entire mountain in the wild.

  "Get rich!" Looking at these truffles packed in the basket, Xiao Ping couldn't help but smile. He just roughly calculated and knew that these truffles were worth over 8 million RMB, which was a considerable income.

  However, Xiao Ping had no experience in preserving truffles, so he wanted to sell all the goods in his hands as soon as possible. Among the people Xiao Ping knew, only Pierre had experience in this area. Although today was the first day of the Lunar New Year, Xiao Ping thought that the French should not be celebrating the Spring Festival, so he immediately called Pierre.

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